


a rolling thunder

by asteropes



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Post-Mass Effect 3, Synthesis Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asteropes/pseuds/asteropes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then, she carefully rises, and EDI goes to awaken Jeff.</p><p>In which EDI discovers something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a rolling thunder

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1/?
> 
> Please enjoy!

It is 5:23am and she is already awake when she is requested.

A extranet message is all she receives. It is short, written by the Geth, and transmits the short, sharp understanding she has become so accustomed to in the few short months since the Change. There is no postulating; it says, clearly, exactly what it needs to say.

She reads it over once, and then, to make sure her optics are not failing, reads it again. With a deftness she can barely muster, she responds; she finds, with surprise, a subroutine has kicked in, and her hands are shaking.

Then, she carefully rises, and EDI goes to awaken Jeff.

* * *

The journey has been a long one, and Jeff is tired by the time they finally reach Rannoch. With the Mass Relays being out of commission, it has been over two weeks travel from the Citadel - frustrating, but not impossible.

“It could have been a hoax,” Jeff repeats for what, to echo a human colloquialism, seems like the millionth time. His mouth is set in a hard line, but EDI knows full well that he would not be here if he did not wish to be.

“Jeff,” EDI says gently, and with his eyes on hers, his expression relaxes a little.

“I know,” he sighs, adjusting his cap with frustration and then leaning on her offered arm. “I just… I hoped we wouldn’t have to travel here.”

The message had been vague and impersonal, asking them in the politest terms to come to Rannoch to retrieve important information. Tali had been promised to be present, and EDI was going to be, for the first time in her existence, uploaded onto a Geth server to retrieve “essential information”.

The Geth, unfortunately, had reverted to such confusing communication that Tali had been forced to mediate between the two. The translations were not perfect, but EDI did not expect them to be, and they more than easily bridged the gap.

And now, they are on Rannoch. They stand in the half-destroyed, ancient spaceport and ignore the sidelong glances they get. A platoon of turian soldiers march by, and across the way from them an asari-salarian family reunites with tears and hugs.

* * *

The Change had been brutal. A flash of green light and the galaxy had changed in billions upon billions of ways.

Jeff had come writhing out of his seat, spine arching, screaming in pain. Around her the ship had fallen into chaos as a heart had begun to form and beat in her chest and the intrinsic duality of her form had come to be a single, crushing, organic singularity. Crashing the ship, in many ways, had been a relief; she had fallen into blessed darkness.

When she had woken, the world had changed.

* * *

EDI no longer has to act the VI, but keeps her voice perkily modulated when she does speak. Perhaps Jeff can hear the exhaustion in her tone. She sits somewhere between organic and synthetic, but right now, the organic tiredness is winning.

Outside, the sun begins to set. They sit and Jeff buys them food. There is no division between foodstuffs or allergen types anymore; there is no need to tell the difference. They are all the same. Flavours are weak on her tongue. She wishes, quietly, that she could take a nap.

Tali, when she arrives, seems tired. Her posture is worn down; she is happy to see them, but undoubtedly exhausted. “Joker! EDI!” she greets, and manages a hug for them both - despite the fact EDI is still bad at hugging anyone but Jeff.

She keeps her mask on - out of politeness or out of illness, EDI is not sure, but she does not pry. Small numbers of Geth swarm around Tali constantly; protecting, from their stances; and Tali moves as though she is used to them. It has been months. She probably is.

The Change had perhaps been the hardest on the quarians, with their weakened immune systems. Geth were assisting in repairing their broken bodily defences, but it was going to be many more months before masks could be taken off permanently.

They find Tali’s parked shuttle together. Tali’s confidence in it is warranted; she takes off cleanly and confidently, and when Joker sits in the co-pilot seat, EDI keeps herself quietly busy running subroutines, or, as Jeff had pointed out, ideas, as she should now call them.

“When Shepard is found,” Jeff says, as though the possibility of EDI’s first home ever being truly repaired is an obvious one, “will you come back aboard?” There is a layer of anxiety there, in that voice - worry. For what, EDI is still unsure.

Tali’s luminous eyes flash green behind her mask. “I hope so, for my sanity,” she says, and they both laugh.

* * *

She and Jeff managed to find something of a life in the aftermath of the war. They had fixed the Normandy after a mere week of forced stasis, and flown off into the sunset, only to find the Citadel decimated and now hovering above Earth.

After that, they had zipped across the galaxy, searching for Shepard. EDI’s crew had mourned while the rest of the galaxy had been in jubilation. They mourned the loss of their friend - their leader - and mourned the loss of the lives they once knew, stolen by a flash of green light.

They had searched for 94 day and night cycles. There had been 88 more since they had finished. Shepard’s body has still not yet been recovered.

Privately, EDI suspects there is no body to recover at all.

* * *

“Be warned,” Tali says quietly, landing the shuttle with care. “The Geth are very protective - they requested you for a reason, EDI.” They step out into the long shadows of a Rannoch sunset. EDI feels the heat against her skin and is unaccustomed to it.

They walk towards the server room in the same way the ground team did so many months ago. Inside the ambient temperature is 17 degrees Celsius. There are some physical forms of Geth within, standing in a clear formation. EDI’s heart is pounding in her chest; the last glint of sunlight off Jeff’s skin makes the whole world flicker into shades of green.

“Fellow synthetic,” a platform greets, its lampshade head flickering in time with its words. “Organics,” it adds, towards Jeff and Tali.

“Technically,” EDI responds, “no longer one or the other.”

The Geth makes a static noise that she translates as a snort. “We know of origins, EDI-synthetic. We have not yet forgotten about gifts given to us.”

“None of us have,” Jeff says quietly. If anyone understands both the creation and destruction involved in the Change, it is Jeff. He has gained a stable body. He has lost his last family member: Shepard.

There is another static noise from the Geth, and it takes a lumbering step forwards. Both Jeff and Tali take a step back, but EDI does not. “Why did you summon us here?” she asks.

“We have a request to make of you, EDI-synthetic,” a platform intones. “We need you to go into a server for us. There is data that needs retrieving.”

* * *

The Change had been called thus because it had happened instantaneously. The lines between organic life and synthetic existence had been blurred so thoroughly it became impossible to tell the difference between the two. Within seconds, EDI’s body had been forced into a state of living; organs had grown within her, and she had, for the first time, truly lived. Organic bodies had been forced into a state of genetic structural transformation - nerves had become wires; organs immediately replaceable, and electricity had shot down brains and into muscles.

The pain, apparently, was unbearable.

She hated this change. She hated how it had been forced upon her, a robot truly made flesh. She existed, and had to live with the knowledge that her body and her existence and what little she knew had been changed forever in order to end the Reaper threat.

EDI cried, sometimes, and Jeff held her. Their relationship, truly, was the only good thing to come out of the mess that had been the Change.

She had not felt pain until she had transformed. She would not wish it on anyone.

She wondered if, one day, her circuits would short out.

* * *

“There is data on the server,” the Geth platform says as Tali begins the process of wiring EDI’s body up to the server itself, “and we cannot access it.” It sounds disappointed. “We have been locked out by the platform you referred to as Legion.”

All of them, especially Tali, freeze up at that. There is a long moment of dead silence. “We believe,” the Geth adds gently, “that this was one of its last acts.”

Movement comes back to them in a flow. “Why are you sending EDI into the server?” Tali asks, her tone a touch too casual to be truly nonchalant. “I mean - you could send any of us.” Even me, she implies, and presses a wire so hard into EDI’s spine that it aches.

“EDI-synthetic is the only one,” the Geth platform states, and more static comes from its speakers. “We do not understand it ourselves. EDI-synthetic is the only one - capable.” It stops there, seemingly content with its choice of words.

The attachment of wires into the base of EDI’s spine becomes increasingly violent in response; it is only when she hisses involuntarily that Tali calms down. “Sorry,” she murmurs, and she shoots a reproachful look over to the Geth, who appear to ignore it.

Finally, the last wire is attached, and Jeff’s eyes are wide. She has no doubt that she does not look as her usual self. Uploading is dangerous for organics - but then, she is partially organic now, too. “Jeff,” she says, hiding the tremors; hiding her terror. “I will not explode.”

His lips twitch in the facsimile of a smile. “Good,” he says, nodding sharply, and then there is the audible flick of a switch, and she is gone.

* * *

The upload is quick; fluid. Her mind translates what most cannot: raw information into images. She sees flashes of light - flashes of a Geth city, populated by millions, and then empty, dead, destroyed. It is void. It is gone. Instead --

With infinite gentleness, is floated down into what is visualised as a room made of blocks and cubes and unedited, pure code.

There is a hologram of Legion here. It watches her; one of the last VIs that she will encounter. It is a terrifying thought. “EDI,” it says, and its voice is just as monotone as she remembers. “We have preserved. We trust only you. Do what you must.” It flickers in and out of existence, and then out.

She steps forwards, towards the anomaly sat in the middle of the room. The code is not static: it is changing as she watches, chunks disappearing and being replaced faster than she can read it. She steps even closer, pressing what she interprets as a hand to it; feeling it as it shifts and adjusts.

She gasps involuntarily as comprehension and shock flush through her in one go. “Shepard,” she murmurs, and it is the truth.

It has been 182 days. Shepard has been found.

* * *

She staggers out of the server, and the Geth physically have to hold her up. This time, her legs are shaking; she is unable, in many ways, to stand - understand. The wires tangle around her but she shakes them off, pulling them out of her back, laughing, laughing, laughing

“What did you find?” a platform says with authority in its tone.

EDI lets out another hysterical laugh. It is liberating in the most dangerous of ways. “Shepard,” she says in between giggles, and gosh - isn’t Jeff’s expression funny? She lets out another peal of laughter, feeling it rush in from the bottom of her chest. “I found Shepard.”


End file.
